He reports that many of the holy saints of God, throughout their lives, were engaged in psalmody, that is, they fulfilled their prayerful service to the Lord by reading prayers, psalms, canons, troparia, and so on, but towards the end of their lives, when they approached perfection, they abandoned the reader's prayer and all its variety, and occupied themselves exclusively with the Jesus Prayer, as gathering together the mind and all the forces and feelings of the soul and directly uniting with the Lord. He adds that this last, that is, the Jesus Prayer, is the shortest and closest path to God, and the first is long, tiring and not so convenient.

And all the holy fathers and saints of God who wrote about the spiritual life could not find words to adequately depict all the loftiness and necessity of prayer. And this, of course, is because, when it is properly produced, when it is created in repentant feelings, from a broken heart, in the awareness of one's spiritual poverty and guilt before God and in the expectation of His Heavenly help, there is a union of our heart with the Lord. And this combination, according to the Holy Fathers, is the highest degree on the path to eternal salvation, because, having united our inner being, through prayer, with the Lord, in Whom is the source of life, we can no longer be deprived of eternal life, having in ourselves the self-life and the self-existent vital principle. That is why Symeon the New Theologian says that if we do not see the Lord here, in this life, then we will never see Him; if we do not unite with Him here, then we will never be united. But it is impossible to see the Lord and unite with Him without grace-filled prayer.

There is no doubt that every other prayer composed by the Holy Fathers is God-inspired, Divine, and partakes of the power of grace, to the extent of our proper attitude to it; but with its more or less complex complexity, it does not have the easy convenience of being able to read it constantly, at any time, at any occupation, and in any place. In spite of its brevity, the Jesus Prayer contains the nature belonging to the Son of God both in the economy of our salvation and in His Divine hypostatic state.

Confessing Him to be Lord and Son of God, we acknowledge Him to be the true God, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but calling Him Jesus Christ and asking: have mercy on us, we confess the mystery of the economy, which pleased Him to perform, for our sake and for our salvation; we acknowledge Him as our Saviour, Who alone can save us. And this, as we know, is the whole essence of our Christian faith, the Gospel and the entire teaching of Christ. St. John the Theologian, concluding his Gospel, says: "And this was written, that ye may believe that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, and that ye may have a believing life in His name" (John 20:31). In a word, the Jesus Prayer unites us with the Son of God in the closest way and in Him makes us partakers of eternal life, which, according to the words of the holy Apostle, is contained in the Son of God in Him is life (John 1:4).

Но всем, доселе сказанным в похвалу Иисусовой молитвы, повидимому как будто осуждается всякий иной вид нашего моления, прошения, молитвословия, церковного последования, псалмопения и прочего. К тому же и апостол говорит: всякою молитвою и молением молящеся на всяко время духом (Еф.6,18).

На все это в книге Паисия Величковского на странице 80 написано так:

"Не мни же сего, благочестивый читателю, яко отводяще нас святии отцы от многого внешнего пения и повелевающе умному деланию обучатися, наносят порок псалмам и канонам. Не буди то; зане от Духа Святаго предана суть сия Святей Церкви, в Ней же вся священнодействия хиротониею оглавляется, и все таинство смотрения Бога Слова, даже до второго Его пришествия, купно же и нашего воскресения, в себе носят. И несть что в церемонии церковной человеческо, но все благодати Божия дело, не имущее достоинствам нашим приложения, ни паки грехов ради наших коего умаления. Но нам слово не о чинех Святыя Церкви, но о еже во особности коегождо от монахов правил же и жительстве есть, сие есть о умной молитве, яже тщанием, и сердечною правостию обыче привлекати благодать Духа Святаго, а ни едиными словесы псаломскими, кроме внимания умного устнами точию и языком поемыми. Якоже рече апостол: хощу пять словес умом моим рещи, нежели тму языком . Подобает бо первое таковыми пяточисленными словесами очищати ум и сердце, глаголящи присно во глубине сердечней: Господи, Иисусе Христе, Боже наш, Богородицы ради помилуй мя, грешного, и тако восходити на пение разумно: понеже всяк новоначальный и страстный может разумно сию молитву в блюдении сердца действовати, пения же никако, дондеже не предочистится сею. Сего ради сей святый Григорий Синаит, всех святых жития и писания и художества духовныя паче всех живущим в нем Святым Духом тонкочастне испытав и рассудив, все тщание о молитве уставляет имети. И паки, Той же Дух и дар имущи, святый Симеон, Солинский Архиепископ, заповедует и советует Архиереям, Священникам, монахам же и мирским всем, на всякое время и час глаголати и дыхати сию священную молитву: нест бо , – рече со апостолом, крепчайшего оружия ни на небеси, ни на земли, паче имени Иисус Христова .